O'Neill takes action to keep captain

Reports of Liverpool sizing a £12m bid for Villa's captain rocked the club and shocked boss O'Neill.

Dwight Yorke was the last Villa player to leave for one of the 'big four' when he joined Manchester United for a club record sale of £12.6m in August 1998.

Yorke became so unsettled by the constant speculation that it affected his game, while then boss John Gregory was so incensed he said he'd have shot the striker.

O'Neill said: "I'm not going to presume on players' good nature to stay around if they don't want to stay.I don't want to presume anyone is loving it here or not until I sit down with them."

The Villa chief wants to give Barry an improved contract on his £42,000 a week to make him the best paid player at the club.

But he doesn't want to rock the boat by starting talks now, preferring to wait until the end of the season when the dist has settled.

"I don't want to hasten talks," he said. "But in football, people seem to know plenty about other people's business and nothing surprises me.But I do think that part of the reason for the interest in players here is that there's something happening."